The primary sources of the Smithsonian document the history of art, culture, music, design, flight, space exploration, science and technology, landscapes and gardens, and native cultures in the United States, as well as the long history of the Smithsonian itself.

Discover archival collections related by topic and/or by names of persons, families, businesses, and organizations regardless of where the collection lives within the incredibly vast resources of the Smithsonian.

Connect with an archivist to learn more about and gain access to the physical materials.

Finding Aids

Archival finding aids, also sometimes called collection guides, are the key to unlocking information in SOVA. Each unique archival collection has a finding aid that provides the user with varying levels of descriptive detail about the collection, such as creator, biographical or historical note, content, subjects, names, forms of materials, how the collection is arranged, the context in which the collection was created, related collections in individual repositories and across the Smithsonian, provenance, where the collection is housed, and how to access the collection. Digitized content from each collection is also accessed via links provided in the collection's finding aid.

Finding aids are essential research and discovery tools that will help you understand the content and context of an individual collection and whether that collection will satisfy your research needs.

The bulk of the collection contains a wide range of ephemera, such as calendars, postcards, advertising cards, magazines, newspapers and fashion plates; also photographs and business and household account books. Also some of Mrs. Holton's personal papers, including correspondence relating to activities with organizations such as the Home Bureaus an...

The General Manuscripts and Ephemera collections contains documents ane ephemera concerning people, events, and activities related to the historical and contemporary lives of Native peoples throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Found In

The Albert Duveen collection of artists' letters and ephemera measures 1.1 linear feet and dates from 1807 to 1946. Unrelated letters written by over 170 mostly 19th and early 20th century American artists are found in this compiled collection of art critic, dealer, and collector Albert Duveen. Additional ephemera includes printed material and photographs of artwork.

This collection is organized in four series. The first contains an assortment of advertising ephemera, including fans, advertising cards, business cards, receipts, circulars, pamphlets, printed advertisements, brochures, postcards and catalogues dating mostly from the late nineteenth century. Materials in the advertising ephemera file are organiz...

Ephemeral archival materials from American schools, primarily from the northeastern United States, and primarily in the 19th century. Types of materials include instruction books and kits; students' work books and notebooks; flash cards; lesson books, some on religious subjects; religious tracts; printed lectures; students' report cards; school reg...